Wednesday, August 10, 2011

While anatomical plastics models and charts are still widely dominating teaching aids of human anatomy in schools, computer generated 3D anatomy models presents a new way of learning.

BoneLab and 3D Muscles Teacher are two very impressive 3D anatomy software by Next Dimension Imaging that can be used to study the human anatomy at various levels. As indicated by the names, BoneLab lets you explore the human skeleton and 3D Muscles Teacher is an interactive program to learn the human muscular system. Both software offers a highly detailed view of the human skeleton and muscles.

The ‘View’ and ‘Tree’ panel lets you select any body part and examine it from all angles. You can freely rotate the models with the mouse and zoom in for extremely close look.

Double clicking on a body part opens a small information box with an option to read the Wikipedia article of the concerned organic part. The Wikipedia article opens in a side pane inside the software.

The software labels each part of the bones and muscle tissue in both English and Latin. The names are stored in a large searchable database for reference. A handy dictionary lets you quickly locate any body part on the skeleton.

3D Muscles Teacher is similar to BoneLab. This advanced muscular system software offers 3-dimensional exploration in OpenGL-based multiple interactive viewing windows, instant display of origin, insertion and actions combined with online access to further related information, images and clips, displayed in the integrated browser window.

All muscles are labeled and color coded. Depending on the viewing angle, auto-hiding labels are displayed for visible muscles. Muscles can be highlighted and exclusively explored.

Both software are free to download, but the demo version of 3D Muscles Teacher has only the first of a total of 12 views fully accessible. The full product costs 59.90 Euro.